


Osculum

by ButterflyGhost



Series: due South Wizard!Verse [20]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, due South
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:06:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little kiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Osculum

It was drizzling. I had imagined better weather of course. Drizzle had never been part of the scene that I played over and over in my head. I had imagined her stepping out, blinking into sunshine, her whole body relaxing as the world brought colour to her smile.

Instead, it was drizzling, and the world was grey. I waited at the gates, as instructed, and when they swung open they even sounded grey. A clichéd creak and groan as they ground on their hinges. I winced. As the gates opened there was a breath of that foulness, that Dementor chill. Then she emerged... not into summer, as I had hoped, not into sunshine... but still, away from that place.

She had one little bag, the possessions that had been taken from her a decade ago. She had a great weight further than that. I had imagined... I don't know. Something romantic, something foolish. That after ten years in which we were forbidden touch we would rush into each other's arms. Instead, she saw me, acknowledged me with a jerk of her chin, and trudged wearily to where I had parked the truck. It didn't seem to surprise her that I had chosen to travel like a muggle. She knows me too well. Somehow... somehow I couldn't speak. I tried, but there was no way for me to break the silence.

At the truck, I opened the back door, threw her few belongings onto the back seat. I held the passenger door open for her to seat herself, then I walked around to the driving seat, and strapped myself in.

“Safety belt?” They were her first words in freedom, and she sounded amused. “Why would you wear a safety belt?”

“The muggles do, I'm driving a muggle vehicle. I might at least look the part.” I was trying to make light conversation, to ignore the weight of ten years between us. I was failing spectacularly.

“Even a muggle would know to look at you that you're something else.”

Was that a complement, or an insult? I couldn't be sure.

“Where are we going,” she asked then.

“I thought... I thought we should stay at a hotel tonight...” I realised as soon as I said it that she probably thought I was going to take liberties. “Not that... not that I'm going to try to, you know... I mean...”

“What, you don't want to?”

“Of course I... I mean I... I mean, you're tired. You need to recuperate.”

She laughed. Already she was laughing easier, though I wondered how long it would be before she didn't have that prison aura hanging around her. Almost as if she read my thoughts she said, “I need a good long bath. Get rid of that prison stink.”

“Of course,” I said, “and I'll be in a room just down the corridor, if you need anything...”

“No.” She sounded suddenly alarmed, and her face went white again, as it had done so often through the years. “No, I don't want to be alone. You said you'd be there...”

“Okay,” I swallowed. “I'm here.”

She turned and faced me, and I could see then in her eyes just what the last ten years had cost her, just how frightened she still was, might always be. “Don't leave me,” she said, “stay.”

Without even realising it, my hands reached out, and I was touching her face. My breath was ragged, electricity was running through me. “I'll not leave,” I whispered, “I'll never leave.”

And then she was kissing me, and oh.

Oh.

She was kissing me, and I was undone.


End file.
